The symptoms of SBS can occur on their own or in combination with each other, and they may vary from day to day. Different individuals in the same building may experience different symptoms. They usually improve or disappear altogether when you leave the building and often return when you re-enter the building.

Who's affected by SBS?

Anyone can be affected by SBS, but office workers in modern buildings without opening windows and with mechanical ventilation or air conditioning systems are most at risk.

The likelihood of experiencing SBS symptoms can be higher if you're employed in routine work that involves using display screen equipment.

Women are more likely to develop the symptoms of SBS than men. This may be because more women work in offices, rather than women being more susceptible to the condition.

SBS environments

SBS seems to be associated with certain types of buildings. Most cases occur in open plan offices, but people sometimes develop the symptoms while in other buildings that are occupied by lots of people such as:

schools

libraries

museums

There have also been anecdotal reports of people experiencing symptoms such as headaches, tiredness and dizziness at home.

Although these symptoms aren't necessarily related to SBS, it's important to ensure your home is a safe environment. Make sure you have working smoke alarms fitted and that gas appliances, such as cookers and boilers, are regularly serviced.

Make sure you can open the windows to allow you to ventilate your home, and keep your home as dust-free as possible. Keeping the rooms free of clutter and in good decorative order will also help make your home a pleasant environment in which to live.

Advice for employees

If you think your working environment is making you ill, talk to your colleagues to see whether they have similar symptoms.

If SBS appears to be a workplace issue, you should raise it with your line manager. They'll be able to investigate the matter further with the help of your health and safety representative. Your employer has a duty of care to investigate the problem. For further advice, your employer should have access to an occupational health service.

Visit GOV.UK to find your local authority. To find your local HSE office you can call the HSE's helpline number on 0845 345 0055 (Monday to Friday, 8am-6pm).

Visit your GP if you have symptoms of SBS that you're particularly concerned about.

Employer’s responsibilities

The HSE recommends that employers take the steps outlined below to investigate the possible causes of SBS.

Carry out an employee survey to find out whether symptoms are occurring more often than expected. It may also help to identify any obvious causes that can easily be fixed, such as adjusting the office temperature. See below for more information.

Check the general cleanliness of the building, including checking that the vacuum cleaners are working properly and are regularly emptied and their filters are clean.

Check that cleaning materials are being used properly and stored correctly.

Check the operation of the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system. In particular, the system that supplies fresh air should be checked.

Check the condition and cleanliness of air filters, humidifiers, de-humidifiers and cooling towers. The HSE recommends humidity of 40-70% should be maintained in office environments.

Check heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system maintenance schedules. Make sure they're being followed properly.

Once the above steps have been completed and any necessary actions have been taken, employers should carry out another employee survey at a later date to find out whether employees are still experiencing the symptoms of SBS.

If the SBS symptoms are still present, a more detailed investigation will be needed. This can be carried out by a building services engineer or another similarly qualified consultant.

Employee surveys

There can be advantages in employers being proactive about SBS and asking individual workers informally whether they have any concerns about their working environment.

If there are credible reports of symptoms, a survey should be arranged in a way that tries to avoid employee discussion, which can distort the findings.

A simple survey should cover the frequency of symptoms and whether they improve outside of the building.

Conducting this type of survey can help identify any issues which can then be dealt with before they become more serious problems.

Workplace health

There are a number of measures you can take at work to help prevent the symptoms of sick building syndrome. For example, you can:

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Comments

The 3 comments about ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ posted are personal views. Any information they give has not been checked and may not be accurate.

Lil Ed said on 22 June 2014

I get SBS at work as soon as the air con is turned on, I have to asked for it to be turned off which makes my fellow workers very unhappy when it is hot and causes very bad feeling as I am the only one that suffers, sometimes it does not get turned off and I simply cannot work.Can anyone offer me any help of advice?

bulgariawo said on 19 June 2013

I, too, would like to investigate the possibility of the home being the cause of SBS. My wife is suffering classic symptoms on early dementia: short term memory loss, impaired cognitive ability, fatigue, also suffers from headaches, dizziness, etc. We no longer live together. I notice if I stay for a day or two, I also start to feel very tired, have headaches, slight muddled thinking, etc... we have had gas and fire applicances checked to rule out carbon monoxide poisoning. What next?